There are a couple hitter priest items in the game, ie small hps and hitroll items (notably 2 from spob and one from PI). These were put in in response to posts on the BBS, but in hindsight that might have been a small minority of the priest population. Just looking getting an idea of whether people are actually interested in battlepriest eq.

I disagree azenilsee. While hitting stuff for damage is a waste of time for clerics (as well as most other classes), hitting stuff for the utility effect is very worthwhile. Skullsmasher, Pahluruk root are two examples of a good bludgeoning weapon with a good utility proc.

Damage is negligable, insignificant and I've only got a 5 damroll with my huge cold-iron hammer of skullsmashing. But to have the option to knock down a mage or hell, anything could be a good bonus to a fight. If nothing else, it's a lot more fun than standing there like a lump, holding onto a couple of starseed nebula's and waiting for defense spells to drop and playing the 'race my fheal vs. mob raping tank' game.

More battlepriest gear, down with the one-dimensional 'more hps' concept of clerics!

Biggest problem with battlemage eq is that there isn't much supporting skills to employ it. I'm all for letting mages stack up on the +hit gear and try to land some proc effects, but clerics have an offense skill of up to 50 and weapon skills to 80 going in their favor.

From what I've seen, mage melee skills are much, much poorer than a cleric's melee skills, at least in terms of potential. But by all means, more utility is a good thing to have, heh.

Kind of middle of the road here, and there was no *Sometimes* option ...

I can see Ash's point, but also feel there are clerics out there who'd rather be more the battle cleric than the actual healer ... where people are going to jump ont he *I feel like a 1-horse show* bandwagon, there is no other class that can do whatt he full heal can do atm, and imho the cleric's prime job is the heal ...

Yeah mage melee is substandard ... but I doubt you have many mages want to up their hit/dam .. Thats why I have a warrior alt :)

Gura wrote:i can just see it now...clerics doing more damage than warriors

Uhm, Just like now?

Mysrel tells you 'have my babies'
You tell Mysrel 'u want me to be ur baby daddy?'
Mysrel tells you 'daddy? No, I think you have the terminology wrong'
You tell Mysrel 'comeon now we both know i would be the top'
Mysrel tells you 'can be where ever you want to be, yer still getting ****** like a drunken cheerleader'

How is a cleric any less of a healer for wearing battle gear than hps? Aside from the 'less hps means you die sooner' argument which I'd accept aside from the fact that I've eschewed wearing big hps gear in ear, held, held, ring, ring for awhile now and the only time I die is when the entire group dies. Maybe it's the supporting cast I group with, in fact a lot of it is but that's an aspect that has nothign to do with your eq.

I'd almost claim that by swinging my hammer around, I'm serving my role as a healer better than somebody who doesn't wield. I'm not wasting my time casting full tickles, and don't even need to consider aborting it to throw out a heal on somebody who's in need. I'm better able to monitor the group status, and toss the occasional heal here 'n there where it's necessary.

You don't need to choose to be a battle cleric or a healer cleric. Your hitpoints have no effect on your healing ability aside from your survivability. Balancing hitpoint gear with +hitroll and a good weapon makes the class much more entertaining, especially as aside from debuffing, it's not like we have any viable spellcasting option OTHER than heals in a fight :P

You don't need to choose to be a battle cleric or a healer cleric. Your hitpoints have no effect on your healing ability aside from your survivability. Balancing hitpoint gear with +hitroll and a good weapon makes the class much more entertaining, especially as aside from debuffing, it's not like we have any viable spellcasting option OTHER than heals in a fight :P

id love more battle clerik eq, and agree with what ash says, i dont do that much dmg melee but the utility of the proc is nice. if youre clerik is worrying about hitting before healing, get another clerik.

and yes thanuk is mad cause in zone gear i have more hit and ac than he does :P

First off, there is absolutely nothing wrong with having a battle priest...Ash, glad you have fun with it. Not the type of cleric I play, but that's just personal preference.

However, there is a LOT of gear out there that is warrior/cleric. Becoming a battle priest isn't that hard if you're looking for the equipment.

As far as the 3 battle cleric items you mentioned though Sav..well, I don't know the PI one really. *shrug*

With the spob cleric gauntlets, I've pretty much said my piece on those already, but let me just add one thing...and this isn't a jab at you by any stretch. What else is there? Seriously..other than Ogrehides, clerics have pretty much NO other options for hp gear on hands. Think mages have a bit more of option..not much so, but some. And you know, I'm not even saying that the gauntlets should lose their +hit...but when you compare the difficulty of getting the spob gauntlets to getting ogrehides? (edit: and muspel fingerless gloves..forgot about those)

Now as far as the spob cleric mace is concerned, I think Ashemiem actually said it. If you're playing battle cleric, it has _nothing_ to do with damage done. If you think warrior melee is bad, it's far above and beyond cleric damage, as it should be. If a cleric is hitting, it's to try to add in that extra effect..be it Skullsmasher or whatever. The mace from spob, if I understand it correctly (please correct me if I'm wrong) randomly procs 1st level cleric spells. Armor, vig light, cure light, etc. If you're going to do hitter cleric, you just aren't going to be wielding this. As Ash said, remove the 2 nebbies, and wield Smasha.

Personal option..if you're going to be putting in hitter cleric gear..it should be warrior/cleric gear. That's not to take anything away from the warriors, but if you're playing battlepriest, that's the stuff you're going to use anyway.

Last edited by Branthur on Mon Nov 17, 2003 7:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.

There are many options on how you want to play your cleric. There is plenty of gear out there to help you +hit/+dam there is plenty of hp gear out there if you chose the road, i mean shit my cleric is still over 900 hp without vit after the changes. Complaining that you cant hit or that we need better battle gear or more options is so mute at this point. Your a cleric, your not there to be the damage, your not there to be the hitter. Your there to keep the group alive and do some damage when you can.

Melee classes are fubard right now, most rogues are scrabling for hit so they can hit at least 50% of the time now, rangers seem to be ok if you consider that 1w is completely safe now, and warriors.. doh i dont even know where to start with warriors. These guys should be the defensive monsters that protect us, yet most of them got their ac yanked, and dont even consider wearing hit/dam cuz they know its hopeless.

I think fixing melee in general will help those people that wish to play battle cleric. But warriors need some special attention.

point of this is, clerics are good as they are. There is plenty of eq now to chose from to either be a hitting cleirc, or healing cleric, or somewhere in the middle. All classes have eq that dont make sense (spob cleric weapon being one of them) but shrug thats always gonna be there, if its not that it will be another. But fix warriors first

Dugmaren mutters in a surly voice 'Got any new strategy or going to continue with the "throw bodies at them til they get bored"? '

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Was somebody complaining about needing more hit/dam? I don't recall seeing it in this thread at least. I don't give a crap about more +dam gear either, there's no point to it.

The point of this poll was, if YOU have a priest would you be interested in more battlecleric gear. It's not a debate about the role of the cleric, which I know very well.

Curious, does everybody who's posted in this thread play a cleric regularly? There's so many alts out there I honestly don't know, but if you feel clerics are 'good as they are' and you play one regularly, then I have to disagree with you. Well I disagree if you don't play one regularly too, but there's actually point in debate if you do play one.

I certainly don't see any problem with adding battlepriest gear in the game. Some clerics will look at it and scoff, thinking they would never have a use for it, and some will think it's exactly what they've been looking for. I'm tickled that you're offering alternatives for the players at the higher end of the game.

Sarvas should really be asking non priests how big of a cow are you guys gonna have if clerics suddenly start walking around with 40 hitroll -100 ac while only giving up 150 hps.

Thanks for putting words in my mouth, but perhaps I'll be a bit more clear. There are currently a few items that were put in in response to battlepriest requests. Notably the spob morningstar and gauntlets, and the cloak from PI. Since then I've gotten some flak for putting those items in. Therefore, the reason for this poll is twofold:

1. should I keep those items as having smaller hps and some hitroll or should I remove/lower the hitroll/dice/ac and put on 'standard' caster stats ie more hps and saves,

I think having feasible options to play a priest as a battlepriest char is a good idea.
Some more and improved 1h bludgeon weapons with useful/cool procs, and some hitroll+hp priest eq would help this for sure.
Having only 1 hit max per round unhasted is a big factor, some kind of extra attack skill or self only spell would be worth looking into.

and sorry for assuming incorrectly, but in my defense you did write spob and you seemed to have thought the eq was fair and balanced.

I think you missed th boat entirely on your cleric spob gear if you were going for "battle priest"

Battle priest will not take off until there are some bitching priest 1h/2h weapons. skullsmasher, dwarven hammer are basically the only 2 worth wielding if you were inclined to be a battle priest. Neither are easy to get, one is dwarf only, and the other is throwable forcing you to curse it.

also, please remember yuanti clerics. They have no ears and no feet. your cleric gold rewards are downright unfriendly to yuanti clerics.

reason I didn't give rogues more attacks is because they're already overpowered. (yes, the cat is out of the bag!) I thought giving them another attack was generous (considering circle, BS, trip, vital strike, poison all add to their combat already)

Savras wrote:Thanks for putting words in my mouth, but perhaps I'll be a bit more clear. There are currently a few items that were put in in response to battlepriest requests. Notably the spob morningstar and gauntlets, and the cloak from PI. Since then I've gotten some flak for putting those items in. Therefore, the reason for this poll is twofold:

1. should I keep those items as having smaller hps and some hitroll or should I remove/lower the hitroll/dice/ac and put on 'standard' caster stats ie more hps and saves,

2. what the interest is in battlepriest items in general.

This is not about "making melee jealous" etc.

(Homer)
You see son, when you try, you just set yourself up for failure. The lesson here is, never try.
(/Homer)

Seriously guys, the dude is just trying to help clerics out and give them a few more toys to play with. Why don't you wait till AFTER he adds the 10d17 +12 +12 proc instadeath 1hand hammer of clericing to get all venomous on him?

Mysrel tells you 'have my babies'

You tell Mysrel 'u want me to be ur baby daddy?'

Mysrel tells you 'daddy? No, I think you have the terminology wrong'

You tell Mysrel 'comeon now we both know i would be the top'

Mysrel tells you 'can be where ever you want to be, yer still getting ****** like a drunken cheerleader'

I honestly see nothing wrong with having a battle cleric. Back way back when like 3 wipes ago when I had my 50 cleric I much enjoyed being able to whack a mob now and then with a hammer if I so chose, mixxed things up a lil bit.

Pheten wrote:I honestly see nothing wrong with having a battle cleric. Back way back when like 3 wipes ago when I had my 50 cleric I much enjoyed being able to whack a mob now and then with a hammer if I so chose, mixxed things up a lil bit.

-phet

The eq existed pre change (not sure if it still does) to make a battle priest, where were they? 45 hitroll was only moderately difficult to achieve and -100 ac rather easy.

The problem with battle priests is they get 1 attack per round (except when casting when they get 0 attacks), are not going to get a haste, and the 2 weapons worth wielding were smasher (rare from jot, can't bash a lot of things, is droppable) and hammer (dwarf only).

I wasn't too impressed with the spob flail, but it is 1h, thats a good step. Needs better procs.

Instead of increasing the number of attacks, maybe just allow them to hit while casting.

and tonights winner in the Toril EQ lottery is demi belt and skull earring!